Yes, there are spoilers here, lots of them.
In this story, Plastic Man goes to Batman for help dealing with the child of an ex-girlfriend, Luke, who is running with a bad crowd, hoping that Batman can "scare him straight." Batman agrees, for some reason. Here they meet with Luke's mother, whose relationship with O'Brian is fairly hostile, and it's easy to see why:
Luke's mother (Angel) pauses when Batman asks about his father, but Plastic Man says nothing, and she tells him what she tells her son--that the father is dead. It soon becomes apparent that Luke is in fact the son of Plastic Man, with whom he has had virtually no contact, and who has presumably no idea that Plastic Man is his father.
Now, I don't think that Plas is technically a deadbeat dad--you can infer from information provided elsewhere
that he does send money to Angel. He tells Batman that he's never been married, so the check is clearly not alimony--and the only other kind of check one might send to an ex would be child support. So I'm assuming that he sends money on a regular basis to help with the boy's upkeep.
Not that this mitigates the act of abandoning the kid emotionally and leaving Angel to do all the parenting, but it does indicate that he's not a total sleazebag. (Just fairly close :)) Going back to my previous post, I think this has something to do with the change in Plastic Man there--that with this story coming up in which he really acts like a heel, the authors may have wanted to build up to that a bit--show some hostility to and mistrust of women in general, to be explained here by his very dysfunctional relationship with Angel? Make him less sympathetic to make it more believable that he would do something like this? I don't know.
They do try to put it in a better context
and give some possible reasons for it; someone particularly fond of Plas can say that he stayed away from his kid because he was afraid he'd be the same sort of father his own dad was, and that's pointed toward but it's obviously not the whole of the story. My own opinion, as someone who does like the Plastic Man character, is that there was really no need for the build-up, showing Plas in a bad light (hell, he has always been shown to have an irresponsible side!)--otherwise-nice people do crap like this all the time. It's surprising, yes, as it is in real life, but honestly there's nothing in his past characterization to say that he would never, ever run away from familial responsibility. He doesn't have to be shown as worse than he has been to make this believable.
I also found Batman's reaction interesting:
not only because it is a rare instance of Batman not being all-knowing, but because it's a well-balanced reaction--he isn't going to give Plastic Man a walk on this--he obviously feels that this behavior is reprehensible--but he's also not going to interfere, although he will encourage Plas to "do the right thing""
Just as Angel did, he gives O'Brian a chance to come clean, but doesn't force it when he doesn't.
As someone who is a parent, my initial, superficial reaction is to think "Plastic Man's a jerk!" (And still enjoy the character, just with that extra aura of jerkiness. :)) However, as someone who--for many years--was single, childless, with my whole life ahead of me and many plans to explore--I can find some sympathy (particuarly since--as a parent--I know what a resource sink children are). My guess is that Angel and O'Brian never had "the talk"--you know, where you sit down with your partner and figure out what you'll do if "it" happens. This is important, not because you have a plan (because chances are that things will look different when parenthood is looming than they did when you were secure in your non-pregnancy) but because you've addressed the issue and each knows how the other feels about it. No wonder they fight.
And is no parent better than a less-than-optimal parent? O'Brian seems to think so--although I suspect there may have some relief involved as well once he felt he had a good reason to stay away--and he may well lack the self-esteem to feel he could overcome his own childhood, despite the fact that he has overcome so much of his past already. All that said, he now knows that Luke knows that he is his father, and that has to make a difference.
There's no resolution here. That's appropriate. That's realistic. What isn't realistic is for this story not to be addressed again--and I hope it will be.
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